Children’s mental health charities merge

Children’s mental health charities The Art Room and Place2Be have merged.

The aim of the merge is to bring together the charities’ evidence-based programmes to support children and young people in schools and to diversify the type of support offered in schools to improve the emotional well-being of pupils, families, teachers and school staff.

Place2Be provides in-school therapeutic support for children, as well as expert training for school leaders as part of a whole-school approach to mental health. The Art Room provides a group work intervention in schools, using creativity and art to improve the wellbeing of pupils experiencing emotional or behavioural difficulties.

Under the merger, The Art Room will continue to run its provision from eight sites across the country. In the coming months, the two organisations plan to pilot ways of integrating The Art Room provision with Place2Be provision, evaluating the impact to inform future developments.

Place2Be chief executive Catherine Roche said there is an "obvious and natural link between the work of our two organisations".

The Art Room chief executive Lisa Harker added: “We are very excited by the potential for our two organisations to work effectively together, harnessing the strengths and potential of both organisations to support more children, schools and families in more effective ways.”